The princess trope represented passivity, entitlement, materialism, and submissiveness, and no daughter of mine would wear a onesie that celebrated such loathsome values. —Andy Hines, The Atlantic (2013) What’s Wrong with Princesses? In January of 2000, Disney executive Andy Mooney made a brilliant if obvious business decision.  He consolidated the most popular Disney princesses into a single franchise and from it spun out through licensees some 25,000 varieties of princess merchandise.  Princess lip balm, princess alarm clocks, princess bedspreads, princess nighties.  According to Mooney, Disney merely discovered (finally!) an already existing demand and licensed all
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The early councils had as their primary purpose the defense and establishment of truth, not unity. —Rousas J. Rushdoony, Foundations of Social Order (1978) Loving Those Who Hate God? “Should you help the ungodly, and love those who hate God?”  This was the rhetorical question the prophet Jehu put to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah (2 Chron. 19:2).  Jehoshaphat had gone to Israel, the northern kingdom, on a good will visit.  The two Hebrew kingdoms had been at odds for a long time, and Jehoshaphat was trying to fix things up.  He hoped to reunite the
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“There is no other stream,” said the Lion. -C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair (2009) Wash, and Be Clean Naaman and his entourage pulled up before the prophet’s hovel of a home.  Naaman was ready to be impressed and amazed.  His master, the king of Syria, had his own court magicians, and they put on a pretty good show.  But the prophet of God must be in a class all his own.  After all, he could cure leprosy.  Naaman’s little servant girl had said so, and now the king of Israel had confirmed it.  Elisha
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…and then there were other people on the island.  We called them the Others, and they started attacking us.     —Hurley, Lost (2009) The primary role of anthropology thus was a process of ‘inventing the human other’ in order to develop a theory of humankind. —Sundar Sarukkai, “The ‘Other’ in Anthropology and Philosophy” (1997) The Children’s Story The war is over, and they have won.  This is the background for James Clavell’s short classic, The Children’s Story (1981).  Clavell shows us a class of second graders in some generic school after the fall of the United
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They showed a piece of paper saying “eminent domain.” —Buckner and Garcia, Wreck It, Wreck-It Ralph (2012) Think about it: What the Court said was that the government can take your property from you and give it to someone else simply if it believes that someone else will make better use of it. —Malcolm Gladwell, “The Nets and NBA Economics” (2011) Wreck-It Ralph Disney’s latest hit, Wreck-It Ralph (2012), shows us the behind-the-scenes life of arcade game characters.  The protagonist, not-yet-hero, is Wreck-It Ralph, “a giant of a man.”  In the game he spends all
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“Such are the facts of history.  The reader will make his own comments upon them.” —Bishop John Wordsworth “An Act of God.” —The official cause of a fire in an abortion clinic. The Judgment of God? Arius, the arch-heretic condemned at Nicea, stood before the Emperor and swore that his beliefs were now orthodox.  Constantine accepted his oath, though with a warning, and ordered the bishop of Constantinople, one Alexander, to receive Arius into communion.  But Alexander didn’t believe Arius’s confession, and so, prostrate on the church floor, he cried out to God: If Arius
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Bruise in us the serpent’s head. —Charles Wesley, Hark! the Herald Angels Sing (1739) If He did not rise, but is still dead, how is it that He routs and persecutes and overthrows the false god, whom unbelievers think to be alive, and the evil spirits whom they worship? —Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word (c. 320) At the Beginning At the beginning of human history, God promised to establish warfare between the serpent and the woman, and between his seed and hers: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
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The Scripture clearly teach that there is one human sacrifice that is allowable and proper:  the one found in Isaiah 53. —Mitch Glaser, The Gospel According to Isaiah 53 (2012) And they didn’t recognize Him?! -a high school student on first hearing Isaiah 53 Behold, My Servant The prophet Isaiah draws a detailed and moving portrait of the Servant of Yahweh:  “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” The Servant is wounded and bruised for the sins of God’s people; Yahweh makes His soul a sin offering.
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Occultism surfaces as a cultural phenomenon at the end of civilizations. —Gary North, Unholy Spirits (1986) …But speak the Name of Christ, and he shall see how through Him demons are routed, oracles cease, and all magic and witchcraft is confounded. —Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word (c. 320) Who’s Calling the Shots? “And now, please, attend very carefully,” the professor said.  “You have probably not heard of macrobes.” Mishearing the word, Mark Studdock looked up from the floor of his cell and began to object.  Of course he had heard of microbes, microscopic
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For the goddess brings forth the great sun and the bright moon. —Zoroaster, The Chaldean Oracles (c. 250 BC) True spirituality is not achieved in our own energy… It is the power of the crucified, risen, and glorified Christ, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, by faith. —Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality (1971) “The Goddess Is Alive” The late twentieth century saw the rebirth of goddess worship in the West.  This religion is essentially pantheistic.  It assumes the existence of a feminine spirit or principle immanent in the Earth or in the cosmos itself.  It
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